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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-11-14 Daily Xml
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Davenport Electorate

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (15:24): I rise to celebrate the incredible advocacy efforts of some young people in my community. Firstly, I would like to speak about Madison who is a student at Aberfoyle Park High School. She recently advocated for a new bus shelter at the back of the school. She had been seeing many kids standing out in the rain, and being burnt during the summer months, so she raised it with her school who then raised it with my office, and fortunately we have been able to work with the Department for Infrastructure and Transport to deliver on that bus shelter for her.

Madison is a year 12 student, so unfortunately she is going to knock off before she sees this shelter erected, but she has been able to be involved in the design processes. We have been able to pop up a nice sign on the site so that she can see her advocacy at work, and I am sure she will be popping down next year after the summer school holidays to see her vision become a reality.

Next I would like to give a shout-out to Sid, local skating legend, from Flagstaff Hill who for some time has been the strongest advocate for the skating community in my area. His latest advocacy efforts have been regarding the surface of the skate park, which has become quite slippery with some of the council's maintenance efforts, so he has been advocating via me to the council to try to see that that surface is renewed and made safer for the skating community. He has been successful with that, and council will be coming through in the next couple of weeks basically to sand back the surface of the skate park, returning it to a much safer surface for our huge skating community we see filling up that park every night of the week.

Next we have Sophia and Brodie from Happy Valley who advocated for a half-court basketball court in their local reserve, which is Serpentine Reserve at O'Halloran Hill. Sophia wrote to me a little while ago and then I went and spoke with her and her brother who were able to paint the picture of this half-court basketball court that they would like to see for local kids and teenagers to come and enjoy. Sophia then pushed for an additional netball ring, so we now have basketball and netball available for young kids in the O'Halloran Hill community. It is absolutely packed on a summer evening there now.

Then we have the Candy Road BMX Crew. This is a new group of kids who have been speaking to me about their vision for some new BMX jumps, also at O'Halloran Hill. I met with them recently so that they could talk myself and the council through what they are hoping to see down there at Serpentine Reserve. I would like to give a special shout-out to Nate Dog, who is now my very good friend on Snapchat, and he and his friends Jasper, Will, Jayden, Logan, Ben, Shan and Olive have all contributed by drawing their own pictures of how they would like to see these BMX jumps developed and sending them through via Snapchat, which I am still getting used to. It is really amazing to be able to work with these young kids and hopefully help them to see their vision become a reality with the support of the local council. Watch this space to see that vision come to life.

While we are also on advocacy efforts in my community of Davenport, I would also like to provide special thanks to Judith Ellis from Aberfoyle Park who has been advocating for defibrillators at the Happy Valley Reservoir. She came and had a chat with me and my team at Aberfoyle Park and we have been able to work with SA Water to see four new defibrillators installed at the Happy Valley Reservoir, which are life-saving devices and a great suggestion from our community, so a big thankyou to Judith, who I am sure who has saved a life with her advocacy.

With the time I have left, I might provide an update on the Majors Road on-off ramps at the Southern Expressway. We are full steam ahead with this project. The DIT project team have set up next to the Riding for the Disabled on Majors Road and they have developed a beautiful relationship with Riding for the Disabled. They have been helping them out with some local projects as well, so a big thankyou to the Department for Infrastructure and Transport for that relationship and support they are providing.

We are on track with this project with a completion date of 2025. People in my community and surrounding communities will absolutely start to see major construction starting in the next few weeks, with site offices already erected. There are some minor works happening on the road including a new lane that will help the vehicles access the site offices, and there might be some minor speed restrictions but most of those will be limited to outside of peak periods, so hopefully very minimal interruption to our community and a very exciting project.

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